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I’ve worked on another politically based infographic this year. Last year I was inspired to learn about the history of the political parties and how they’ve adapted and changed over time. This year, with a lot of talk about immigration, I decided I needed to learn more about the history of policy and legislation around it in the U.S..

My desire with this piece is to capture a timeline of immigration to get a sense for the number of people who came to the U.S. in different periods, where they were coming from, in some cases why they were coming, and the U.S. response to the influx.

This outline is meant to capture basics in a mostly chronological order and highlighting legislation or noteworthy milestones about immigration policy. I will include links to all my sources below in case you want to dive deeper (let’s be honest though, I mostly just fell down a wikipedia hole). I did find that there were some conflicting stats on some of the items, and feel quite assured that details are missing (maybe important ones) so please take the figures as guidelines. If you find anything that is noteworthy or perhaps important to your own culture that I missed, please email me so I can learn more about the nuances and perhaps in future I can publish an update if there are enough missing pieces.

To clarify my definitions in the key (as they are all pretty subjective):

Major: A piece of legislation that had a broad effect for a large population of people or made a dramatic change in the precedent.

Noteworthy: Legislation that augmented a previous piece of legislation, was a small change, or had direct effect on a smaller piece of the population.

Amnesty: Legislation that worked to provide the opportunity for immigrants who came illegally to gain legal status.

Proposed: Legislation that was proposed but never passed or enacted.

Overturned: Pieces of legislation that later on were modified, replaced or removed, usually to be more inclusive or tolerant.

Commentary: Well, that’s just me filling you in on some of the current events of the time or giving you an overview of what happened during that period.

As I mentioned before, I am nervous about having missed pieces of this puzzle that may be important, either to the country (or world) as whole, or even just a specific group of immigrants that came to the U.S. for reasons I didn’t capture in this piece. I realize this is a very complicated issue with many facets. In addition to just “regular” immigration you have refugees, illegal immigration, naturalization and all the other levels of residency and types of visas that I barely cover here. I had the desire to spend more time on current conditions, but since very little legislation has actually passed in recent years, it would just be a sloppy mess of proposals and attitudes so I only included some of that.

As for the layout, I’ve included some arrows to help guide you across the 3 columns of text. It’s organized to be relatively chronological but goes back and forth across the page a little un-uniformly so hoping those arrows help you to know what to read next if you are looking for chronology. I also tried to keep major legislation in the central column, but as we get closer to modern times, there’s a lot less of it so there’s more of a mix of proposals and noteworthy legislation.

The moral? In my opinion, not super positive. I was happy to see the results of some studies in the mid and late twentieth century state that immigration is a good thing for the economy, but the lessons from that research didn’t stick as racism and fear of change seem to continue to be the driving force behind attitudes towards immigration.

Again, please reach out if you find anything in error or pieces missing from the story. (sources at bottom)

Here’s a personal project that I’ve been collecting the data for since seeing and being inspired by the hot Broadway musical Hamiltona couple months ago. It made me interested in learning the history of political parties in the US, and in this heated political environment we’re in, it seemed crazy timely to get a better understanding of the roots and evolution of each party’s ideologies.

There were many ways to approach this graphic, but I settled on illustrating the dichotomy of centralized versus decentralized government to show how the parties have basically flipped on this issue. (A very brief and generic description of how I’m using those terms: believers in centralized government feel that the nation as a whole should work together to support its citizens while believers in decentralized government promote the belief that individuals and/or states should care for themselves, limiting the role of federal government.)

I’ve also worked up a brief summary for each System. It’s a guide to help explain behind the scenes what was happening, but as with most write-ups, probably contains lots of inferences and generalizations, so consider it a jumping off point, not a treatise (this can be found below the infographic in this post). Many thanks to Wikipedia for all the information I gathered, as well as this one really helpful infographic designed by someone at the University of North Carolina that successfully shows the many roots and off shoots of the parties over history, focusing on which persons from which parties ran in each election. Credit also to this amazing infographic that, while beautiful and also full of too much information, tells the story of which parties were in power over the course of history. Unfortunately, neither of these fine pieces showed a history of ideologies, which was the main thing I wanted to tackle in my own design.

A note about the Fifth Party System: there is no consensus that the Fifth Party System has actually ended, or if so, when it ended and the Sixth Party System started. For the purpose of this piece, and based on my own analysis about what seemed like changes in the politics, I made the call that the Fifth Party System ended at the beginning of the 1980’s. I just want to be super clear though: this is currently just my opinion and grains of salt should be taken.

A note about the language used to describe politics, I found in my research that the terms liberal and conservative start popping up in the Progressive Era (post Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency), and reference to right-wing and left-wing seem to come into use even more recently. I designed the infographic to reflect our modern interpretations of right and left so as to emphasize how each party aligns with those ideologies, though I think it’s important to note that the history before 1900 really doesn’t seem to identify with that terminology.

Additionally, it’s much harder to see through the weeds in contemporary politics, so I found there were a lot of new things and loose ends that have yet to be tied up so it gets more complicated and undetermined at the bottom of the infographic. Maybe I can go back in 10 years and clean it up once I have the benefit of hindsight. I also make a note in my write up about how it was relatively easy to size up the political parties based on the dichotomy of which side of the argument for or against centralized government they fell, but as we get into the 1990’s, a whole new axis seems to be forming, where third parties are aligning and fracturing based on their approach to fiscal and social issues. Meaning that some parties may identify with being fiscally conservative (i.e., believing in limiting government-based trade restrictions) but might be ok with a variety of government-based regulations on social issues (i.e., gun control or reproductive rights issues). Just an interesting note for what lies ahead.

Purely nerding out, and definitely information overload, but if you’re into that kind of thing, I hope you enjoy it! Feel free to contact me if you want to talk about my research or interpretation of this information. (click on the image to zoom in, so you can see the fine print).

An Overly-Simplified
History of Political Parties in the United States

Over the course of U.S. history, various issues have split people into different factions by political party, but the fight for and against centralized government has been constant since the very beginning.

First Party System
1792—1824

The Founding Fathers did not originally intend for American politics to be partisan, but disputes arose and factions formed. The Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, were ardent supporters of centralizing the government, consolidating debt on the federal level, and creating a central bank. Federalists were also keen to maintain good relations with Britain for trading purposes.

The Democratic-Republican Party, led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, believed strongly in individual liberty, sovereignty of individuals and states, and limited government. They were concerned that a national bank would lead to corruption and monarchism. Democratic-Republicans also felt loyal to the French, who had come to the aid of the American Revolutionaries, but were now fighting with England and struggling through their own tumultuous revolution.

Era of Good Feelings
1816—1824

The issue of whether to side with France or England dissipated at the end of the War of 1812, leading to the Era of Good Feelings, where the two parties were more or less united on issues, especially after Madison agreed to establish a national bank in 1816.

Second Party System
1828—1854

The election of 1824 had four men running, all calling themselves Democratic-Republicans. Andrew Jackson won the most votes, but not the majority of electoral votes, so the final decision went to the house of Representatives, which chose John Quincy Adams.

Jackson in turn formed the Democratic Party, whose ideology embodied the strong Jeffersonian beliefs of small government, free trade, and hard money. Adams’ Party, the National Republican and then Whig Party, followed closer to the Federalists, arguing for stronger central government, infrastructure building, and high tariffs, all to promote commerce. Within the Whig Party, an anti-masonic group formed in opposition to Jackson who they were distrustful of because of his membership in the secret society, as well as a xenophobic party with an anti-Catholic agenda, in response to new immigrants coming from non-Protestant countries.

This period was dominated by the dispute over slavery, staunchly supported by the Southern-dominated Democrats. The Whig Party was not unified on the issue, which eventually led to its dissolution.

The Republican Party was formed from the remains of the Whig, Know-Nothing, and Free Soil Parties, which were all against the expansion of slavery, plus Democrats who were against secession. Abraham Lincoln, leader of the Republican Party, won the election of 1860, prompting the secession of seven southern states, and shortly thereafter the beginning of the Civil War.

Third Party System
1854—1896

In the election of 1864, Lincoln renamed the Republican Party the National Union Party. The temporary name was used to attract those who would not vote for a Republican. He ran with Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, hoping to prove his seriousness in working with southern states to reunify after the war. This proved to be a fateful decision as Lincoln was assassinated just over a month into his second term, and only 5 days after the South surrendered, leaving the Democratic Johnson as President during the critical early years of Reconstruction.

Johnson’s views did not align with those of the Republicans who held a majority in Congress. He opposed granting freedmen many civil liberties that Republicans had intended, including property rights and citizenship. He vetoed the Civil Rights Act, but the veto was then overturned by Congress, making this the first major bill to become law over presidential veto. Johnson was impeached, but was saved from removal by one vote. In 1868, General Ulysses S. Grant, a Republican, won the presidency. He built up the Republican Party in the South, but over the course of Reconstruction, corruption ran rampant as “carpetbaggers” (northerners who had come south) took advantage of their power. At the same time, groups like the Ku Klux Klan used intimidation and violence to run Republicans out of office and repress voting by blacks, leading to white Democrats regaining power of Congress.

The remainder of the period’s politics focused primarily on economic issues. Republicans continued to support high tariffs and protectionism to build the economy and to support federal programs like education, while Democrats argued for fewer restrictions, free trade, and fiscal conservatism. They also clashed on international policies, with Republicans supporting an active foreign policy while Democrats maintained an anti-imperialist stance.

One Republican principle that has been in place since the end of the Civil War is the strong support of military spending, stemming primarily from the desire to provide for the veterans of that war.

Fourth Party System
1896—1932

The Fourth Party System began after Grover Cleveland’s second term, coinciding with an economic depression due to the abundance of silver coinage then in circulation.

Labor unions began to gain influence and power and a Populist Party formed. Additionally, a small faction of the Democratic Party that was against silver ran candidates in the 1896 election, which helped turn the vote in favor of Republican McKinley. McKinley continued high tariff policies, was pro-business, and used “interventionism” to justify the Spanish-American War, gaining the colonies of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and Cuba.

When McKinley was assassinated, his young Vice President Theodore Roosevelt took the helm and chartered in a new “progressive” era, promising fairness, breaking of trusts, regulation of railroads, and regulation of food and drugs. He also prioritized conservation, establishing a myriad of national parks, forests, and monuments. His successor, Taft, tended towards a more conservative agenda, favoring big business. Roosevelt challenged Taft in the 1912 election by creating his own Progressive Party (nicknamed the “Bull-Moose” Party). This split in the Republican votes ensured the election of Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

Wilson did continue a more progressive agenda by passing such legislation as the Federal Reserve Act (central banking), Federal Trade Commission Act (anti-trust and anti-monopoly) and other consumer protection policies, as well as reintroducing income tax, increasing regulation in the labor sector, and signing off on the 19th Amendment, opening up the vote to women, a decision that went against his party. The US entered WWI, and following armistice, Wilson issued his “Fourteen Points” that promoted an international approach to the progressive domestic policies that were being pushed at home. This was the beginning of “Wilsonian Idealism” – an infusion of morality into internationalism that promoted global democracy.

After the war, there was a desire to return to “normalcy” – how life was before war. A more conservative Republican leadership came into power. Calvin Coolidge was an adherent of the laissez-faire ideology, believing in the states’ power to manage themselves, which up until this point had been a primarily Democratic ideology. The economy boomed during the “roaring 20’s,” resulting in decreased union activity and declining federal regulation. The Market Crash of 1929 began the Great Depression, which brought with it a major political shift and end of the Fourth Party System.

Fifth Party System
1932—1960(—80’s)

At the beginning of the Fifth Party system, the country was deep in the middle of the Great Depression, which wreaked havoc on the economy and left 1 in 4 people unemployed. Under Hoover’s lead, the federal government increased tariffs in hopes of promoting the purchase of American goods, but this only exacerbated the depression world-wide. He promoted the notion that private business would volunteer not to lower wages or reduce their workforce, but that was not sustainable.

Hoover was voted out in favor of the young Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, in 1932. Roosevelt sought to restructure the economy and to use the federal funding to create demand. FDR’s first “New Deal” included the establishment of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the FDIC, and the National Recovery Administration, which forced private industries to work with the federal government to set price minimums, reduce production in order to raise prices, and allow unions to establish labor standards and competitive conditions. The second “New Deal” created Social Security, the Works Progress Administration, and a stimulus to grow labor unions. In 1938, a bipartisan conservative coalition formed to stop further expansion of the New Deal, afraid that the country was turning into a socialist state. When unemployment dropped to 2% in the early 1940s, most of the New Deal programs were disbanded, except Social Security.

The New Deal splintered the Democratic Party, with Southern white conservatives (Dixiecrats) joining forces with the conservative Republicans to form the Conservative Coalition, which promoted an anti-socialist and anti-integration agenda. Once the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed, Southern Democrats abandoned the Democratic party entirely, becoming Republicans instead. At the same time, a liberal faction of the Republican Party continued to support Social Security and other social programs, but this faction slowly faded out. By the end of the Fifth Party system only the Conservative side of the Republican Party remained. From that, a far-right splinter group, the American Independent Party, formed in the 1960’s that began to heavily influence the Republican Party.

The Fifth Party System saw a transition in the demographics of each party. The traditionally Southern-held Democratic Party became the party of liberal-minded constituencies, such as Jews, African-Americans, labor unions, progressive intellectuals, and populist farm groups. Republicans lost the African-American vote and gained evangelical Southerners. Republicans began to promote stronger states’ rights over federal jurisdiction and sought economic deregulation.

Sixth Party System
1960—

While there is no official transition from the Fifth to Sixth Party System cited yet, some historians argue that the Sixth Party system began in the 1980’s. The Republicans held more conservative viewpoints while Democrats pursued more liberal agendas. Unlike the preceding systems, the two major parties’ positions are more polarized and extreme in this era, with a corresponding rise in partisanship and congressional gridlock.

The Republican Party of this era is pro-business, anti-regulation, and believes in the reduction of spending and tax cuts for the wealthiest in order to promote the economy. Republicans have also taken on more socially conservative agendas such as anti-abortion and anti-gay rights. Reagan won due in part to the support of “Reagan Democrats” who were attracted to his socially conservative policies. The “Christian Right,” not a specific party but a faction of the Republican Party, gained strength and drew the whole party farther to the right. Another group, called the Tea Party, emerged in response to a perception that mainstream Republicans were insufficiently conservative.

Democrats continued to support social programs such as healthcare reform and believed in increasing taxes in order to support and promote the economy. They also believed in reducing taxes on the poorest, and increasing for the richest to balance the budget. In light of the success of Reagan’s landslide victory, a part of the Democratic Party created the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and began to take an economic liberalism approach to fiscal issues that allowed for more power of the individual in business and promoted free trade, but allowed for certain amounts of government intervention such as regulating monopolies.

Parties focused on very specific issues gained traction in this System, highlighting issues such as the peace and the environment (Green Party), Reducing National Debt (Reform Party), and Reduction in Government Spending and general decrease in size of Federal Government (Libertarian Party). These third parties sometimes do not align directly along the dichotomy of centralized versus decentralized government, sometimes swinging in opposite directions on fiscal issues versus social issues; a whole new axis of dichotomies to start tracking.

Here’s an at-a-glance view of the infographic, to get a better feel for the spin offs, merges, and switches that happen:

In honor of International Women’s Day (#IWD2016), I’m working on a series of portraits of some famous and awesome ladies of history. This is an ongoing project, so will be continuing to post them as I make them. Check back here for more!

03.08.16 – I’ll start with Queen Elizabeth I (1533 – 1603). A formidable character, worthy of recognition for her long and (mostly) peaceful reign of England. Daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth ruled for 44 years, known as the Golden Age, where English drama flourished, led by playwrights such as William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, and seafaring English adventurers such as Francis Drake made their name. Nicknamed the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth never married or bore an heir.

03.10.16 – Second in the series, is Harriet Tubman (1820 – 1913), an African-American born into slavery. She escaped and subsequently made some thirteen missions to rescue approximately seventy enslaved families and friends, making her a brave and critical member of the Underground Railroad. After the civil war, she continued to campion for rights of both freed blacks and women.

03.21.16 – Third up, Joan of Arc (1412 – 1431), is considered a heroine of France for her role during the Hundred Years’ War, and was canonized as a Roman Catholic saint. She claimed to have received visions of the Archangel Michael, Saint Margaret, and Saint Catherine instructing her to support Charles VII and recover France from English domination. After the uncrowned King sent her off as part of a relief mission on the siege of Orléans, victories ensued and the King was crowned. She was later captured by the English side and then burned at the stake at roughly 19 years of age. So, she might have been a little crazy, but a teenage woman going into battle in the 1400’s is still pretty bad ass, so makes my list for famous and awesome women of history.

03.28.16 – Sacagawea, also Sakakawea or Sacajawea (1788-1812), was a Lemhi Shoshone woman who helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition achieve each of its chartered mission objectives exploring the Louisiana Purchase. Reliable historic info about her isn’t limited. Most of the info we have is based on the journals written by the two explorers. She traveled thousands of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean with the expedition in 1804 and 1806 as the wife of a Quebecois trapper (married to him at the age of 13). She was brought along primarily as a Shoshone interpreter. She established cultural contacts with Native American populations, including a reuniting moment with her brother whom she’d been separated from at the age of 12. She bore her son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, while on the expedition.

We owe a lot of credit to the National American Woman Suffrage Association of the early twentieth century for bringing her history and importance into the forefront, by adopting her as a symbol of women’s worth and independence.

04.03.16 – I’m pleased that this post aligns with Dame Jane Morris Goodall’s birthday (b. 1934). She is a British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace. Considered to be the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best known for her 55-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania. She is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and the Roots & Shoots program, and she has worked extensively on conservation and animal welfare issues. Apparently as a child, she was given a lifelike chimpanzee stuffed animal named Jubilee by her father, which apparently kickstarted her early love of animals.

04.10.16 – Sally Ride (1951 – 2012) was an American physicist and astronaut. She became the first American woman in space in 1983 (two Russian women preceded her). She remains the youngest American astronaut to have traveled to space, having done so at the age of 32. After flying twice on the Orbiter Challenger, she left NASA in 1987. She later worked at Stanford and then University of California, San Diego as a professor of physics. She served on the committees that investigated the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters, the only person to participate on both. She was the president and CEO of Sally Ride Science, a company she co-founded in 2001 that creates entertaining science programs and publications for upper elementary and middle school students, with a particular focus on girls. It was revealed after her death that she had been in a 27 year long relationship with her partner Tam O’Shaughnessy, making her the first known LGBT astronaut. She was a strong advocate of science and space exploration, and I’m honored to promote her accomplishments.

04.17.16 – Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) is a Mexican painter best known for her self-portraits that exposed her physical and emotional struggles and pulled imagery and colors from her Mexican cultural heritage. She suffered lifelong health problems, many of which were caused by a bus accident she survived as a teenager. She was pegged as an surrealist painter by André Breton, but she felt her work reflected more of her reality than her dreams. She was married to famous Mexican artist Diego Rivera for what turned out to be a very volatile relationship. Throughout her life, she was very politically active. Since her death, Kahlo’s fame as an artist has only grown. Her childhood home was opened as a museum in 1958. She is viewed by many as an icon of female creativity.

04.24.16 – Susan Brownell Anthony (1820 – 1906) was an American social reformer and feminist who played a pivotal role in the women’s suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to social equality, she started her politically active career at the age of 17, collecting anti-slave petitions. She met Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1851, with whom she became a lifelong friend and co-worker in social reform activities. The list of things she did is long, from founding the New York Women’s State Temperance Society, to founding a newspaper for women’s rights, to founding the National Women’s Suffrage Association, to literally co-writing the book on the history of women’s suffrage, to submitting an amendment to Congress (submitted in 1878) that was finally passed in 1920 as the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving women the right to vote. She campaigned around the country and the world for women’s rights her entire life. When she first began campaigning for women’s rights, she was harshly ridiculed and accused of trying to destroy the institution of marriage. Luckily, over her lifetime, public perception of her changed and by her 80th birthday, she was invited to celebrate at the the White House at the invitation of President William McKinley. She has continued to be celebrated, notably with her portrait appearing on the 1979 dollar coin (the first non-fictitious woman to appear on U.S. coinage). I for one am eternally grateful to her and all the women who worked so hard to pass that amendment and endeavor to never take for granted all the hard work that she and others put into the cause.

05.08.16 – Florence Nightingale (1820 – 1910), known as the “lady with the lamp,” was a celebrated English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing. She was born into an affluent British family, but from a young age was drawn to philanthropy, mainly ministering to the sick and poor. Against her family’s wishes, she chose to pursue a career in nursing. She studied in Germany, and when she returned to England, quickly excelled in her field and was promoted to superintendent within the first year of being hired. When the British entered the Crimean War, she and a team of nurses were called upon to aid the British soldiers on the front. The conditions were appalling, and with the help of her staff, they were able to improve the unsanitary conditions at a British base hospital, reducing the death count by two-thirds. She wrote about her observations and proposed reforms to sanitation. Her writings sparked worldwide health care reform. In 1860 she established St. Thomas’ Hospital and the Nightingale Training School for Nurses. She remained a prominent figure and authority on the subject and was regularly consulted by governments regarding the establishment of field hospitals. At the age of 88, she was conferred the merit of honor by King Edward. She had contracted “Crimean Fever” and lived bedridden from the age of 38 until her death at 90. Since 1965, International Nurses Day has been celebrated on her birthday each year, May 12.

I’m so pleased to have a new piece featured in the Bold Italic today. I worked on this for a few months so am excited it gets to see the light. For those not local to San Francisco, the Bold Italic is a popular local website that is both a treasure trove of resources about things in and around the city, but also full of fun illustrated articles that hit home for a lot of San Franciscans. What better place to showcase a fun infographic about tid-bits of city trivia?

I dug deep into the depths of the internet to find facts that I felt were static, meaning not info about population, demographics, economy, or other such things that change frequently, in order to give this piece a longer shelf life.

It was a lot of fun to discover some of these things too, so hopefully the readers enjoy learning along with me. I mean, what city has two songs dedicated to its honor. The story behind why there is an official song AND a ballad is so good it almost deserves an illustration of its own. Perhaps I’ll save it for another time.

My hope is that the internet has not lied to me in my effort to find factual information. If anyone has anything to contest, I’d be eager to hear your findings.

For example, I almost misrepresented Mission Dolores as the oldest structure, but luckily a good friend of mine came across an article debunking some common held SF misconceptions, saving me from publishing that error. Still felt like I had to include the Mission though as it’s such an iconic and clearly very old piece of SF history.

In the spirit of infographics, I did also try to keep things like scale consistent wherever possible. There are some places where that didn’t work out, and others where I felt it was too important to skip (the magnitude of the earthquakes, for example, since it really adds to the viewers’ understanding of the difference in severity), and I do feel rather guilty about failing to represent the information. Hopefully you don’t hold it against me too much.

I was pretty pleased to learn about the history of Wells Fargo and its relationship to American Express. History fun facts are cool.

Hope you enjoy! Keep an eye out for more. I had so much fun making this, I can’t wait to come up with another.

I spent the weekend in New Orleans, which was incredibly fabulous for many reasons. In addition to it being a fun town, it also has some of the most amazing architecture and atmosphere. When you see people trying to make “shabby-chic” look cool, NOLA is their muse, and frankly, is the only place that can get away with it and look authentic. The colors are vibrant, all the textures are perfectly weathered, and the wrought iron is delicate and intricate. It is genuine, rich, and chock full of its own history.